The king pulls away enough for me to think through the haze of his presence. Does he not know that I lost my memory? I assumed my previous captors told him, but in hindsight, they had plenty of reasons to keep this a secret.

“Is my wife suddenly shy?”

My cheeks flame.

One of his fingers trail my blush. “She is. How very titillating.” He leans back in, his breath warm against my throat. “Let’s see how long it’ll take for me to make you forget your embarrassment.”

He presses a kiss to my neck.

I can’t hold it in any longer.

“I don’t remember you.” I stare at the velvet chair the king sat in not a minute ago, but I’m not really seeing it. I swivel my head to face him. “I don’t remember you.”

Above me, the king’s fallen ominously silent. I feel the weight of it bearing down on me. Nothing this man does is subtle. Not even his silence.

“What do you mean?” he says carefully.

“My memory is gone.”

The King

MARCO.

The Resistance made it appear that he’d died at their hands, but Serenity’s words paint a new picture.

Marco carried the memory suppressant on him at all times in place of a cyanide capsule. When he and Serenity were cornered, he must’ve used it on her. He could’ve still died at the Resistance’s hands, but if he’d had time to give her the serum, he probably had time to die, either by his own hand or knowingly by another’s.

Faithful until the very end.

The crushing weight of his absence tightens my lungs. I force my grief down. I’ve had plenty of time to mourn him while the Sleeper pieced Serenity back together. I won’t let it ruin this day.

I stare at my wife, flummoxed by this turn of events and more than just a little unnerved that she lost her memory and I hadn’t noticed.

She remembers nothing.

All those reasons she hated me so viciously—gone. I could avoid her ire altogether. I could charm her as I had the many women who passed through my bed before her. It’s tempting. But as I fall into her guarded, wary eyes, I find I want the old Serenity back.

I married my hardened, angry queen because her spirit was the twin of mine. Without her past, all her rough edges will be blunted; she’d only be a shadow of herself.

I touch her cheek. “Would you like your memory back?”

“You can do that?”

My thumb strokes her skin. I’m practically vibrating with the need to take action. The weeks spent waiting for her to recover have tested my patience. Knowing it’ll be a while longer until my Serenity returns is almost too much.

“I can.”

“Then yes,” she says, “I want my memories back.”

Serenity

I DON’T LIKE doctors. Soon enough I’ll find out precisely why.

The king still hasn’t let me up from the bed. He has, however, stopped trying to kiss me. I’m horrified that mixed in with my relief is regret. His touch awakens all sorts of slumbering emotions.

I’m supposed to hate him, and yet he’s the first person I’ve encountered who treats me like I’m something precious. It’s heady, feeling cherished, and it’s making me question everything I’ve been told about him.

I do, however, believe he’s a bastard—otherwise, he wouldn’t be holding me down while the doctor comes at me with a needle.

“Let me go,” I growl, trying to push him and the other guard they called in off of me.

“I’m seriously questioning your memory loss,” he mutters under his breath. Louder, he says, “It’s just a needle.”

I don’t care if it’s just a needle. I’m tired of people asserting their will on me.

The king nods to the doctor. The man in the white coat captures my arm and steadies it. Before I can pull it away from him, the needle slips under my skin, and he empties the antidote into my veins.

It’s over before I can react. The king lets up as the doctor moves away. I glare at him as I rub the crook of my elbow.

Belatedly, I realize I’m rubbing my arm with my injured one. Only, it no longer hurts.

I’ve been too distracted by the king to notice what else about me is different. I roll back the sleeve of my shirt, expecting … something.

What I don’t expect is smooth skin.

It’s gone—the wound, the infection, the scar that should mark it. My skin prickles. Not only has the king saved my arm from amputation, he’s removed all evidence that there ever was an injury to begin with.

It reminds me eerily of my memory wipe, replacing the ugly and scarred with something new and unsullied.

“It’s gone.” I run a finger over it. When I look up at the king, I can tell he’s drinking in my wonder. “How?”

“The East’s medicine is better than the West’s. You’ve been inside the Sleeper for a long time.”

“‘The Sleeper’?”

The doctor’s lingering at the foot of my bed, and now he clears his throat. “Your memories won’t return all at once,” he says. “The bulk of them will come to you in three hours or so, but it’ll take up to several days for the drug to fully reverse the effects of the memory suppressant.”

“Is that all?” the king asks.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The doctor bows to the king, and then he and the guard take their leave.

It’s just the two of us again.

My eyes meet the king’s.

“Want to see the rest of our home?” he asks.

My heart skips. From prisoner to queen. I may be trapped in a whole different way here, but I much prefer the king’s presence to that of Lieutenant Begbie’s. We’ll see if it’ll remain that way once I get my memories back.

I nod to the king. Hopefully a tour of this place will break up the strange tension crackling between us.

He extends a hand to me. I don’t bother taking it, not so soon after he held me down. I’m not above pettiness.

This, oddly enough, makes the king’s eyes twinkle. “Some things, Serenity, not even memory can touch.”

CHAPTER 6

Serenity

NOTHING’S HAPPENING.

Granted, it’s only been thirty minutes, but I’ve taken to stalking through what appears to be an honest-to-goodness palace. The king’s sly smiles only serve to make my foul mood even fouler.